


For a Song

by PrinceofHellebore (PrinceofPlants)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Discussions of death, Gen, Interiority, No Beta, Spoilers episode 177, implied suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:28:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27803071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceofPlants/pseuds/PrinceofHellebore
Summary: Now that he’s seated, determined to wait, he can feel the ache of too long walking leave his feet, he can feel the weariness of a heavy burden too long carried, lift.  He can feel the relief of eyes closing after many sleepless days.  He breaths deeply and hears a voice.This is Oscar's perspective during his conversation with Zolf.
Relationships: Zolf Smith & Oscar Wilde
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24





	For a Song

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of a weird one. In many ways I don't feel like I've added anything to this. Half the word count is the dialogue from Episode 177. However, I love writing Oscar's POV and since he almost never says what he means I felt there was still space there to explore that. So be warned this follows the episode very closely and only deviates in Oscar's interiority. I hope you enjoy it anyways.

It’s a strange place where he is waiting. It creaks like a ship, and its cold like being on the deck of one. The air is like ice and lingers in his lungs. His first steps are in sand but he leaves the enclosure and walks into a courtyard with not stone paving but wide wooden boards. Spindly trees rise from the ground and their branches spread over his head at twice his height. He pauses a moment before continuing. The edge of the open space is crowded with buildings, the passages between them are narrow, and the buildings seem to lean towards each other overhead, closing in. It’s like some of the old parts of some of the cities he’d visited, but here they are made of wood not stone or brick. It’s a strange place. He chooses a path at random, a narrow alley, he’s doesn’t think he could call it a street and walks along it. It turns, twisting around the corners of buildings leading him suddenly to a door. He stops before it. The door is narrow, barely as wide as his shoulders and he’d have to stoop to enter. But he’s been led here so he pushes the door open. It swings easily and he’s tempted to step through.

The other side is green, lush, warm compared to this place. It’s his home, far away from here and he could just step into it. But he’s waiting.

He takes another turning and there’s another door. He opens this one too, the room is small but he knows it instantly, the room he kept while at Trinity, he can see the old library through the window across the way. The angles are wrong, he had to crane his neck to get a view of it before. He’s waiting. He steps away from this door too and continues. 

He walks and he opens many doors. They lead places he knows, places he loves, places he was loved. But he’s waiting. He can go later, something has to happen first, though he doesn’t know what. Something has to arrive. Someone. So he wanders and he waits.

He does find a way out of the buildings, finds an edge in this empty place. _The Vengeance_ rests on a broad landing pad. She’s whole and that seems wrong too. He steps to the edge and sits, legs swinging over an enormous drop. The landscape is obscured with fog though he can catch glimpses of dark trees and rippling snow and ice. He waits.

Now that he’s seated, determined to wait, he can feel the ache of too long walking leave his feet, he can feel the weariness of a heavy burden too long carried, lift. He can feel the relief of eyes closing after many sleepless days. He breaths deeply and hears a voice.

Someone drops down beside him. ‘Hey.’ He’s filled with elation, he knows that voice, knows who he was waiting for. 

“Hey, Zolf,” He feels full of peace now, Zolf is with him and there’s time. So much time. He looks out over the landscape below and as desolate as it appears, its beautiful. 

Zolf speaks again, hesitant, voice pitched quiet and gentle. “Um do you know what’s happened?”

He sighs, so much, so much and it’s over now, “yeah, feels like for the first time I get to have a break.”

“Yeah.” Zolf’s voice is rueful. “Yeah, well, um, I guess… I guess that’s what I’ve come to talk to you about.”

He doesn’t want to talk. Why couldn’t he just be left alone, to rest, to recover, to just have five minutes. He aches for it. “Could just join me, that’s okay too you know?” Zolf sighs. He can tell its with an immense sadness, he’d seen as much when he’d glanced at Zolf’s face. He pats the deck next to him. “Room for one more et cetera.”

“I’m not done yet and I’m here to ask if you are or not because you could come with me if you want.” Zolf’s every word is so careful. He looks at Zolf and sighs. Couldn’t Zolf just ask him to. Why won’t he just ask. He’d go with him if Zolf would just ask. He’d pick up that impossible burden and carry on, if Zolf would — just — ask.

He sighs again and then clicks his tongue thinking, his gaze returns to the landscape laid below them. He remembers how much the world gave him and how much it took away. Fear pricks at him. He’s afraid it will give him this, give him another chance with Zolf, and that it will take that away too. “I mean you say if I want but thats never really really what its about, is it, its less if I want than if I can, if I get to." 

“No not not in this case um…” Zolf stutters, he can tell how hard Zolf is trying to keep his tone even, unaffected and he wishes Zolf would just break, would show him that emotion that Zolf has hidden for so long. An unfair thought, because he’s hidden the same. “If, if, if you want I will turn around and go back and y’know leave you here and that is fine.” 

The thought of Zolf going stabs at him. “Don’t need to. You’re welcome to stay.” Then they could both have time to rest. He could show Zolf all the places he’d lived, all the places he’d loved.

“I’m not done yet, I don’t want to stay here” The words are firm, unyielding. 

“Why not, just…” he sighs, wasn’t this nicer than what was back there. Well maybe not here but, here wasn’t the only place they could be.

“I’ve got things to do and I’ve got…” Zolf continues.

“You always will,” he cuts in, Zolf wasn’t getting it, it was never-ending, “if there’s one thing that I’ve learned it’s that there’s always something to do. That doesn’t mean that you actually have to do it. It just means that there’s something to do.”

“I’ve got things I want to do.”

He sighs, he doesn’t actually have an effective argument against that.

“And if you don’t that’s fine, well, yep, no, that’s fine and I will leave you here, its up to you.”

He wasn’t ready for Zolf to leave, he wouldn’t ever be ready for that so he offers a postponement. “How bout we just have a sit.”

“Yeah…”

“For once.” 

“Fine.”

And they sit, space between them, unable to negotiate a bridge across it.

“Do you want to talk now that we have, I dont’ know if time’s even moving, but maybe as much time as we want or I don’t know maybe not but, yeah, or we can just sit here I don’t know this is… I guess this is your whole space so…”

His space, no that wasn’t right, “Well you say that…” he looks at the ship, the cabin hadn’t been terrible, but it had been cramped and bare. He’d have chosen something different, he wanted something better, for himself, for both of them. “If this was my space I would be somewhere a lot nicer you know filled with soft beds and ideally there would be…” he searched for the other thing that might entice Zolf to find that place with him. “Music,” Zolf makes a sound like tsking. “but apparently…” Why was he here. There had been so many doors, he could have walked through any of them.

“Yeah well you could always learn an instrument and…” that wasn’t what he wanted. 

“I told you what happened when I tried to learn an instrument, right?

“Yeah, you might have all the time you want now…” He snorts derisively, All the time… time wasn’t what he wanted, at least not just time. They sit, silent now. He doesn’t know how to convince Zolf to stay with him. 

“How about a game?” he says, brightly.

“Sure, if you like,” Zolf’s voice is hesitant.

“Great, I’ll go first… never have I ever…” he clicks his tongue thinking, then decides to layer on a little guilt. “crashed a boat, sorry ship and blamed it on someone else.” Its a story from Zolf’s past but he’s hoping it parallels closely to recent events.

Zolf frowns. “you know, this game would be a lot more fun if we had something to drink.”

He thinks about it, he had a reserve in his cabin, perhaps Zolf would follow him that far, maybe they could find somewhere better, somewhere to stay. “Yeah alright. I think there's something left in my cabin.”

“Yeah alright.” They stand and he leads them through to the door of his cabin. He opens it and steps into his apartment. He’d left the balcony doors open and the air is full of spring flowers. There are fresh bouquets on the tables. He’s full of glowing pride, he’d been trying to get Zolf to come around for weeks and he’s finally agreed. He strides to his drinks cart and pours. Its the finest he can afford, well, actually, a little finer than he can afford.

“This is nicer than I remember it.” The comment is odd because Zolf has never been here before, but the compliment is nice. He’s pleased that Zolf is impressed.

“Hmmm, oh this place… its not all that. Its okay to start with but big plans and all, but oh its nice to have somewhere to fall back on. you know have a bit of a break.”

“Yeah,” Zolf sounds doubtful, then confused, “plans?”

“Oh yeah, y’know... I know I’ve been doing a lot recently, but I think once I’m out of uni,” he was close now, just one more term, “I really need to look… I really need to look towards a career.” He was excited for the possibility of it. The grandness available to him. He knew he’d be doing great things.

“Alright Wilde,” Wilde freezes, images flash in his head, stormy seas, sandstorms, snowstorms, the Borealis. Age and weight drop over him like a bucket of water turned over his head, sliding off just as quickly. “I didn’t know you when you were at uni.”

Of course he did, they’d been friends forever. “What?”

Zolf stands, holding his drink in his hand, patting his breast and his face. “Hang on, who am I?”

What a funny question, what was he on about? “What do you mean? Zolf?”

“Ok” Zolf seems reassured.

“You’re just you.” He frowns, why was Zolf being so weird?

“How did you meet me?”

That was ages ago, years, so much had happened since then, he could hardly remember when. He blows air through his lips, thinking, “gah you’re going way back then, ah…” He strides out onto the balcony and looks across the skyline of Paris. Zolf follows him but pauses in the threshold. He leans on the rail, “I mean... I’m trying to think... can’t remember when we became mates actually. I know you… didn’t I crash your place one time? Pretty certain I did.”

“You broke into Hamid’s apartment.” He gets flashes of other peoples faces in his mind. 

“Yeeeeaah, yeah, gods, oh yeah, because I was…” he’s filled with a horror, he hated that piece, not the writing but the interview. “oh no, I was doing that piece on Bertie, wasn’t I?”

“You were.” Zolf is frowning at him. Zolf hasn’t taken a sip.

“Gods, that's a blast from the past,” but he feels unsettled because he doesn’t actually remember when that was. It feels like ages ago and like it hadn’t happened. He remembers it only in bits.

“Yeah, how long ago was that?”

He deflects. “All just sort of bleeds into itself a little bit.”

“Yeah,” Zolf says flatly. Zolf doesn’t believe him, Zolf knows something, Zolf is keeping something from him. “But you were working for a paper at that time, weren’t you?”

He hadn’t done interviews yet, working as a reporter was the next step, at least until he made a name for himself. “Nah can’t have done I’ve only just finished uni.”

“So why were you writing a piece on Bertie?” 

Why indeed? Then he remembered getting the assignment from the editor. “Must have been for a paper or something, right?”

“Yeah, so why are you at uni?” The two selves clashed, him at the peak of his university days, the future laid out glorious and waiting, him a few years later, working hard but making a name, getting recognition. And it didn’t make sense. It tilted him into discomfort and he took a long swig from his glass, nearly draining it.

“What’s with all the questions? Right, okay...” He's trying to turn the conversation back to something manageable but is struggling.

“Wilde!” Wilde feels decking below his feet, feels himself falling.

He can’t figure out why Zolf won’t just relax with him. “Its fine we have all the time in the world.” Zolf tries to cut in but he only speaks faster and a little louder. “All of this stuff we can do, big plans, but we don’t have to do it all now. We can just have a moment.” He runs out of breath and Zolf speaks.

“Wilde, you’re dead.”

Wilde feels himself falling. Impact. Blackness. “Dark.”

Zolf shakes his head and he looks at him. He can see pain in Zolf’s eyes and doesn’t understand. “No, you are dead, you died. I saw you die.”

He sighs. He doesn’t know how to comfort Zolf. Zolf can see that he isn't dead. He doesn’t understand the joke, doesn’t understand what Zolf is trying to tell him. “You’ve always been very dramatic, Zolf, you know that, right? You just… you kind of need to learn to just, just pull back a little bit. You’re very intense all the time…” This wasn’t the good time he had been wanting to have when he invited Zolf round.

“Wilde.” He stands from the rail, unsteady with drink or emotion or memories, he isn’t sure. 

“What?!” Why was Zolf so worked up, why couldn'y they just enjoy this beautiful spring afternoon?

“We were in _the Vengeance,_ we went through the Borealis and the engines went down and we crash landed and you died.” He remembers and he doesn’t want to talk about it, he just wants this quiet easy moment. This breath before it starts again. 

“Why are you having to steer this in such a heavy direction? It's fine to have a sit and have a drink for once, Zolf!” He flops into one of the chairs on the balcony and holds the glass to his lips but doesn’t drink. Its full and he doesn’t remember pouring more. 

“I am here to ask you if you want to come back to the world to live again.” He closes his eyes. He understands now, how could he forget those years, the work, the burden, the devastation. 

“And I’m saying its fine. We have all the time in the world. We can have a bit of just chill time like look if there's one thing that I’ve learned, okay, is that it's fine to be ambitious, but sometimes you just need a bit of you-time, y’know.” 

“I agree with you but…” 

“Fantastic so join me,” he gestures emphatically at the other chair. 

“I don’t want to spend some you-time with a version of yourself which isn't real.” 

He sighed. There it was. He was an illusionist, yes, but that didn’t make him unreal. He was real, but he knew, sitting there with the memories of a future he hadn’t lived, or had and forgotten that he wasn’t whole. He evaded. “You’re getting very deep here, Zolf, I just invited you for a drink.”

“I don’t know what sort of state you’re in, obviously I can’t know what sort of state you are in given the state you are in, but I’m here for a reason; not just to hang out with you, although that would be nice if we ever got a moment to just hang out.” 

Yes it would be nice and “we do. Right now.”

“No!” Zolf was going to make him choose. His heart beat loudly in his chest.

“Just five minutes, Zolf, for once. Just for once.” He didn’t even care that it sounded like begging. 

“We took five minutes, Wilde,” He remembered they had, by the airship. “and now we’re in your apartment in Paris.” 

If Zolf didn’t like either of those places there were other better places. “Fine where do you want to go?” He got up and strode across the apartment to the front door. Logically, it should have opened to a corridor, but instead it opens onto a short set of stairs that lead into a treed park at night. He hurries down the steps, skipping several and takes a few strides into the park before stopping and turning.

Zolf had followed him. “If you want to go there lets go there but… I... we’re in a situation, just… look, either you want to stay here, where ever here is, or maybe move on, where ever that might be, or you want to come back with me.” Couldn’t he just have all of it? All of it. He can feel tears prick at his eyes and he’s furious too. The world had crowned him and then buried him. 

“Wilde,” the use of his name, pleading like that, it makes him stop, he hopes, hopes that Zolf will just relent and come with him. “Just talk to me honestly why are you... why?”

That was so unfair. “Tell you what, I will talk to you honestly when you talk to me honestly,” because he remembers, the assignments, the research, the groundwork, and the mountains of paperwork. And every competent action just earned him more. And Zolf was only giving him his place back. His job. He didn’t want to just live for a job , for a mission. But if Zolf would just ask him. If it was Zolf asking. “just say the words: Wilde, we need you to fix it again. Wilde, its gone wrong, help. Wilde solve this problem. Wilde, won’t take long. Just give me one of them. Just actually talk to me honestly, for the first time. Just what is it? What needs fixing? What’s gone wrong? What’s on fire? Who died?” He had, he brushed past that unfortunate example. “What do I actually need to fix here? Because right now, this is the first chance I’ve had in I don’t know how long.” 

There was so much already on his plate. He had so many balls already in the air. He was good at juggling, but there always came a point where you would miss and ruin the pretty pattern. “I’ve got finals coming up, I’ve got all of the interviews that are lined up on top and everything’s piling up and all I’ve got is people asking me to fix things and I keep doing it and I keep fixing everything, brilliant, so tell me, Zolf, I thought we were friends but, no, what do I need to fix?” He was panting by the end of it, terrified that more was going to be asked of him. His drink had sloshed over his hand.

“You don’t…” Zolf sounds anguished. 

“You want to cheat off me, is that it? Its fine cheat off me, like everyone else does, fine.” Depend on me, lean on me, it’s fine. He could hold the world up.

Zolf yells, “You don’t have uni. you don’t have exams. you don’t have interviews. You are dead.” Right, yes, that’s what this was about. “You have no responsibility anymore and you don’t need to have any responsibility anymore, that’s okay,” his voice softens “but I am giving you a simple choice: you come back with me…” because Zolf wouldn’t stay, he hadn’t managed to convince Zolf of that, “or you don’t. That’s it. There is no other motive. Yes, things are broken and things need to be fixed and things need to be sorted out, but that doesn’t have to be on you. And it shouldn’t be just on you. We’re all responsible for everything and you died in pursuit of a fix and it would not be fair for me to tell you that you have to come back.” Sure it wasn’t, what was. So if he wasn’t going to ask then why had he bothered to come at all. 

“So why are you here? What actually is the point? Why would you not just let it lie, then?”

“To ask you if you want to come back." He can hear Zolf holding his voice steady, keeping his tone just this side of pleading. Why wouldn't he just come out with it and ask him. "You didn’t choose to die but you can right now choose to stay dead.” No, he hadn’t chosen. He had fought over and over again not to. But everyone had to at some point and it wasn’t wrong to want to rest. He stands there, silently. He brings his glass to his lips and drains what’s left. 

Zolf speaks again, voice near breaking now. “I know better than a lot of people that death ain't the end,” It was though, at the very least it was a parting. “I’m a cleric for goodness sake, so there is a natural order to things and people die and they move on and that’s just how it works.” 

He wanted to go back. He wanted to go back with Zolf, but he didn’t know if he could pick up the mantle again. There was little left of the world he knew, they’d been trying to save it, but he could have here, the world was here, laid out behind every door. He could just walk through them. The only thing that wasn’t, or wouldn’t be for much longer was Zolf. “I’m just tired Zolf, that’s all, I’m sorry, I’m just…” 

“I know Wilde, I am tired too.” And that was a relief, sharing that. 

He thought again of the burden he’d have to shoulder. “Everyone thinks that they are carrying this but they’re not cause, you know what happens if they drop the ball I pick it up and pass it to someone else and if no one else is there to pick it up I carry the ball myself. That’s just how this works… and I’m just tired. I’m just so tired, Zolf, I’m just so tired…”

“Do you really think you are the only person that feels like that? Everyone feels like that, all the time, everyone’s tired and everyone has work to do.” 

Sure, yes, but he didn’t have to any longer. That was life, and this was death. “So I just go back and carry on until eventually we can’t? that’s not…” 

“Not necessarily, not if you don’t want to.” He didn’t know, he didn’t know what he wanted, because the real answer was neither. “I told you when I first came here: I will turn around and go back on my own and that is fine. That is your choice but I want you to understand the options.” Zolf takes in a deep breath, holds it, waiting for his answer.

“Just give me a reason other than because there's something that needs doing.” Any glimmer that the world wouldn’t always be his burden to bear. “That’s all I need. Just one reason other than there is another job for you, Wilde, that’s all I’ll need.” 

“Do you want there to be another reason.” 

Was Zolf trying to be this obtuse?! ”What did I just say, obviously I do yes.” He says, impatiently.

“Fine, because I need you, Wilde…” 

Relief, he could go back for that, why had it been so hard to say? “And there we go. An honest answer from Zolf Smith. I never thought I’d hear it.”

“You were just angling for that? You bastard.” 

“No,” it wasn’t quite a lie, he’d have bent for other reasons but it was the one he had been wanting, the one he had hoped for. “I wasn’t just angling for that, but its nice to know.” His heart lifts he feels again that elation from when Zolf had first found him on the dock, swinging his legs over nothing. 

“Yeah well, I didn’t want to say because it wouldn’t be fair.” 

He drinks again, and then gestures about him. “Oh nothing's fair, look at it.” He spits the words out. Life hadn’t been fair, why should death be.

“Fine, do you want to come back or don’t you? Like yeah, I’ve said it, I know, but its still your choice.” 

And he wasn’t ready yet, there was still something pulling at him. Zolf needed him, and he could have Zolf, back in the world but how long would that last. It could be forever here. “Here’s the plan we’re going to finish up these drinks,” he raised his own, it was full again. “We go out there,” he gestured through the trees, there was a path and the light suggested it was a long walk to the next place, “and we just figure it out, we always do, its fine. It just useful to know I’m not beating my head against the wall for no reason, Zolf, y’know.” If he could prolong this it wouldn’t matter if the world took Zolf away from him, he’d have had this time. 

“Look,” Zolf grabs him by the lapels and pulls him down to his height. They were nose to nose. He stares into Zolf’s eyes. “when this is all done, we’ll go on holiday or something…” Zolf didn’t just need him, he wanted him and not for anything other than just him. They could finish the mission and then set down the work. The word holiday glittered in his imagination. 

“Where?” his heart pounded excitedly. 

Zolf wasn’t prepared for the question. His grip on his lapels loosened and the distance grew between them. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know where is going to be left after all this is done but somewhere nice.” Fair point, but still, he could work, and then when this work, this specific job was done, he could rest and he could have Zolf. 

Why hadn’t Zolf just said this all at the beginning? What had been so hard? And he can’t help himself. “Zolf,” he says, he can’t even keep the teasing from his voice. “I won’t come back with you unless you tell me where we are going on holiday together?”

Zolf had always been good at seeing through him. “You’re such a dick, come on.”

And they walk back through the door, and out of _the Vengeance_ and back through the city to the round building in the courtyard.

“You can still stay here, if you want.”

“No, you said we were going on holiday together. And that’s exactly what we will do.”

Zolf takes his hand and they walk inside. And Wilde wakes again in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
> 
> Love,  
> Prince of Hellebore


End file.
